I'm Not Scared of You or Anything Read online

  INVIGILATOR

  Montreal University. Downtown Campus. Annex B, fifth floor. Winter semester. You lock eyes with fresh-faced, bright-eyed undergraduates. Some of them are cheaters. You know this on account of all of your experiences with cheating. You had never cheated at anything, but you have a great deal of experience with the cheating of cheaters. That’s for sure.

  The students look at you with varying degrees of disdain, reverence, and desire. You recently took out a book from the Montreal University library on the topic of pedagogy and desire. It’s called Pedagogy and Desire and it explains that the “subject presumed to know” (that is you) “was always cast in the role of the desired and highly sexualized figure.” (You totally get that.) It is argued in the book that: “the pedagogue, with his alpha status, and his unquestionable potency, must be ever-vigilant to guard against the tacit and explicit advances of the young, female (and occasional male) scholar.” You have never experienced the psychosexual thrust, so to speak, of an explicit advance, but you are very well aware of all the unspoken, unsubstantiated, very subtle attention you are receiving. And, it is true, you are not technically a pedagogue, but you do have a kind of authority that makes you pedagogical in an immediate sense. And since you are in a position of such authority, it is inevitable that the hopes, dreams, and fantasies of young, post-pubescent, hyper-hormonal undergraduate students will fall upon you. It doesn’t matter that you have never entirely rid yourself of your baby fat; it matters not that you are missing two molars and one incisor, or that your slightly graying hair is slowly receding despite your religious, liberal application of Rogaine.

  The book tells you that you are inevitable fantasy material to these young women. And you believe the book. The book is so smart. And who are you to argue with a book? And so, you rue the day that you will have to break a young person’s heart. But that day is sure to come, as sure as exams come thrice a year. And if you’re honest with yourself, you look forward to it too. It would be one of those instances of “condolulations” which is a word you made up, combining “congratulations” and “condolences.” Constructing neologistic portmanteaus is a habit of yours. It is your fifteenth year as an invigilator and, earlier this year, during the fall semester exams, your colleagues commemorated the milestone, as per your collective agreement, with a gift certificate to the agreed-upon restaurant, Mike’s. You had the mozzarella sticks and a salad (which were the only vegetarian options) and three daiquiris. You got very emotional during your thank-you speech, and you felt that you had ruined the moment with unnecessary tears, tears you tried to hide by claiming that you were simply sweating from your eyes.

  Later, at home, you throw yourself a private party for one. You buy fifteen vanilla cupcakes with sprinkles, some expensive red wine and an adult video. You stay up until 4 in the morning with the cupcakes and the video. Then a strange feeling overwhelms you. You feel crippling remorse and anxiety. You wrap the DVD and four cupcakes in your soiled bed sheets and place everything in a garbage bag and take it way down the street and place it in the dumpster behind the Italian restaurant so your roommate, the very perfect Sally, won’t find anything. You are very careful about everything. Especially when it comes to invigilation and Sally.

  Sally is an international student from rural Australia who had originally intended on studying chemistry. But when she arrived in the city and began living a cosmopolitan life, she began to experiment sexually with people, smoking marijuana, drinking alcohol, and, as a result, she switched her major to art history. You don’t entirely approve of her life choices but you consider yourself a man of the world and a relativistic thinker. And some nights when Sally has a gentleman caller over for a rousing session of sexual congress, you press your ear to the wall — you and Sally have adjacent rooms — and you listen to the two of them and you “pound it” (as they say) to the sounds. Sally has a tendency to yelp like a frothing taser victim during sex, and as she is about to climax, she utters strange phrases like, “It’s so big that you’re knocking on the door of my cervix!” or “Your dick is my gateway drug!” You sometimes turn flaccid at the more peculiar phrases, but more often than not, you are turned on. In the two years she has been here, Sally has really become a true North American in your opinion. She has also gained weight, which is less of an opinion and more of a fact. It would be good for her, you sometimes muse, for her family to fetch her upon graduation so that she would have to return to her homeland and enter into one of those traditional Australian arranged marriages. But more often than not, you resist that thought. Sally has become special to you and it would be hard to let her go.

  The winter semester is at a close and it is time for serious proctoring action. You are ready to invigilate. The first day of exams includes Introductory Accountancy, English Rhetoric and Composition, and Statistics. You are to be the head invigilator for the English exams and the alternate head invigilator for the others. The most senior of invigilators is Doyle. Doyle Morrow. Doyle has been working for twenty years. That is five more than you. But, still, you feel that there is a silent understanding among your confreres that you are the true veteran. You feel that you had a natural authority and a certain je ne sais quoi that is hard to put into words. Who knows what it is, frankly, but it is there because you feel it all the time in your head, in your heart, and it is yours and they know it and probably know that you know it also. That’s why, although occasionally you get jealous of Doyle’s hours and wage, you, for the most part, are easy-going about micropolitics.

  Sally is scheduled to take her English Composition exam on a Wednesday and you are pleased because you want to champion her as she so richly deserves. You will be able to peek in on her particular classroom because you will be the head invigilator that day. You won’t break from protocol, except to maybe give Sally a quick wink or thumbs up. That’s an acceptable breach of professionalism. As for the room assignment, Doyle is the best choice to supervise Sally’s class. Although he lacks the air of authority and the je ne sais quoi of a true leader, he is fair. Sally will be in good hands. You are aware that this will be the final exam of Sally’s university career. She will soon be a bona-fide Art Historian, with a Bachelor of Arts and everything.

  Sally approaches you in the kitchen on the eve of her composition exam. “I’m mighty nervous,” she says, in an unfamiliar, timid voice.

  “There is nothing to worry about, Sally. Your North American English has improved. Especially your idioms. I listen to you sometimes, you know.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, I hear you say things. And, often they are very close to normal English in their cadence and execution and, I must confess, it does get me excited sometimes.”

  “Well, thanks, I guess.”

  “And listen: I will not have the privilege of proctoring you myself . . .”

  “What?”

  “Oh, I suppose that sounds dirty. But it’s not. Proctor is another word for invigilate! I have assigned my colleague Doyle Morrow to oversee the exam proceedings and he is a very competent invigilator in his own right. He will ensure that an environment of fairness and tranquility is preserved. Tell him you are my friend. He will give you a good desk.”

  “Oh. Right. Sure. Thanks. Whatever.”

  Sally enters the room fifteen minutes early and places two sharpened pencils and her student ID on her desk. When the exam arrives she looks over the essay questions:

  Choose one of the following essay topics below. Write an essay of no more than 1500 words.

  1. In your opinion, have celebrities gone too far in this day and age?

  2. What is your favourite animal and why?

  3.Do you believe that parents have the God-given right to beat their children?

  4. Computers are an essential part of daily life: discuss.

  Sally takes a deep breath, selects her topic, and formulates her essay title: “Beating Children: A Necessary Evil.” Things are going quite well. She develops a thesis, three topic senten
ces and a conclusion. As well, she constructs a thought bubble in order to expand her ideas. She is halfway through her rough draft when she sees you at the door. You hold up a sign against the window of the door that says, “I believe in you.” You take down the sign, wink at Sally and give her a thumbs-up. When Sally smiles and reciprocates the thumbs-up, Doyle Morrow furrows his brow. “Excuse me, young lady.”

  “Oh . . . sorry. It was just my friend. You know him,” Sally says, as the entire class turns to look at the door where you sheepishly grin and smile at Morrow.

  “OK. Everyone settle down,” Morrow says and glares at you.

  The students go back to writing the exam and Morrow goes back to his New York Times. All seems to be settled, when the silence is broken by the tune of Beyonce’s 2009 hit single, “Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It). ” The unmistakable ring tone is coming from the breast pocket of Sally’s pinstriped power suit. Sally grabs her cell phone and fumbles around with it. Eventually sending the incoming call to voice mail and silencing her phone. But the damage is done. Doyle Morrow is towering over her with a look of utter contempt in his eyes. “Young lady, were you not aware of the regulations forbidding electronic devices such as cell phones and electronic dictionaries from being on your person during the writing of this exam?”

  “I’m so super sorry. I just forgot it. I should have handed it in.”

  “You bet your sweet academic career you should have handed it in. Give me your exam booklet.”

  “But, sir, it wasn’t intentional.”

  “For all I know, that cell phone is equipped with a translation device and electronic text generator capabilities.”

  “No, sir. It’s just a standard Nokia flip phone!”

  “Give the booklet to me now!”

  Sally hands her almost complete exam to Doyle Morrow and watches, helplessly, as he tears it up in front of everyone. There is a collective, muted gasp in the room. Sally begins to tear up and bolts from the room. The tears keep streaming as Sally weaves her way through the slush and sludge of the downtown Montreal streets toward home. She throws herself on her bed and after a lengthy session of snorting and bawling, she flips open her phone and checks her voice mail: “Hi Sally, it’s me. I am calling from a payphone down the hall. I just wanted to apologize for my inelegant show of support today. I trust that you will get this message after you have successfully completed your exam and that you will forgive me. I do believe in you and I will not apologize for that sentiment. Proud of you!”

  The exam season is now over and you receive a reprimand for fraternizing with a student and a year-long suspension. You are very much emotionally distraught by this and also by Sally’s academic suspension and the corresponding emotional fallout. To top it all off, Sally’s family has called for her. And Sally’s spirits are so low, her future so bleak, that she has already printed out her ticket and packed her bags. You decide to take this year as a chance to take inventory and live on social assistance.

  You twin Sally’s moping about the apartment, and make sad eyes at her. Sally says she forgives you, but has no desire to speak to you at any length or in any depth. And it is clear she has no desire to rekindle the mild tolerant banter she once had afforded you. She says there is no time, no point.

  One spring night, you slip into Sally’s room with remarkable stealth and tap her on the shoulder. Sally gasps and scurries to the far corner of her bed. A slim, scraggly, undergraduate boy darts from the room, clutching his jeans and T-shirt. Sally cries out after him, “Donny!” But he is gone.

  “I’m sorry, Sally. I’m sorry about everything.”

  “Jesus! What are you doing? What do you want?”

  “I want your happiness. I mean, sorry, I want you to be happy. Again. Once more.”

  “Sigh.”

  “OK, Sally, but I’ve been thinking this over. Since, you know, you got suspended, and you got deported and stuff.”

  “I haven’t been deported. I’m just going home.”

  “Right. Yeah. Well it’s not right. And I will not have it.”

  “What do you propose to do?”

  You get down on one knee in front of her bed. “Propose is the perfect word.”

  “Oh shit. No. Don’t . . . ”

  “Sally, we have known each other since you answered my craigslist posting and then said you weren’t interested but then moved in after that better place fell through. And in that time, I have grown to love you in a specific way. Specifically, I think you are a lady who is smart and has talents that are mostly sexual in nature from what I have heard and also you are, on a personal note, a nice person with social skills that are beyond my abilities. And you dress well for someone who wasn’t born here and is now heavy-set. And listen, I can’t promise you a perfect union. But I do promise that you can still fool around with all those other men and you can still go out and get drunk with your classmates if ever your suspension is to be lifted, and I truly believe it will be. And also, if you marry me, you will get citizenship. And then you can divorce me after a suitable amount of time if you do not, that is, learn to love me, which you might. So now that you have heard my proposal, let me show you the ring.” You reach into your pocket and produce a jewellery box with a fairly impressive gold-plated ring with a cubic zirconium stone. “I got it from Sears!”

  “Oh, Russell,” Sally says, tears streaming down. And then she leaves the room and you don’t see her again.

  Your name is Russell. You hate it.

  THE PROBLEM WITH LESLIE

  From the moment I entered the world, I have had an eyerolling problem. The story of my birth is the go-to tale of my father, John, at family gatherings and when he is binge drinking and therefore I have a keen sense how it all went down.

  In the surprisingly dingy maternity ward of the Concordia Hospital, my parents, John and Meredith Mackie, held their “happy accident” — a “wrinkled little wretch of a human being.” Almost genderless on account of my remarkably small penis and unremarkable features. I looked up at my parents and rolled my eyes and let out a sigh that was described to me later as “in the manner of a petulant thirteen-year-old girl who had just been told she could not attend some fucking stupid concert she had her little idiot heart set on.” My folks were taken aback. Meredith posited that perhaps I had some sort of attitude problem. John offered that it might be best to nip this in the bud with some good old-fashioned corporal punishment. They called for the nurse.

  “See? Look! There it goes,” John said.

  “Don’t call it an ‘it’ dear; it’s a he!” Meredith interjected.

  “Barely,” John muttered.

  The nurse mused that perhaps it was indicative of some kind of palsy or retardation. “Whatever your baby is doing, it is pretty annoying,” she said.

  “What should we do?” John asked.

  “Be patient. Consult with Dr. Chudley. Maybe it’s just a temporary facial tic.” I then turned my head and rolled my eyes and the nurse sighed. “I can only tell you that I understand that this must be very frustrating for you. It is inappropriate to want to hit a baby, but I feel it too,” she said.

  The more time they spent with me in the maternity ward, the more their hearts softened. My eye-rolling was frequent and irritating, but I had some redeeming qualities. I was, after all, a baby. And babies have this strange scent that naturally protects them from violence and ill will. It is the scent that can only be described as the very essence of humanity. My parents would take care of me to the best of their abilities. They both agreed that I was not likely to grow up to be much of a man, so they named me Leslie.

  When I was finally taken home, I was baptized by my sister, Frances, who spat in my face repeatedly.

  When I was in elementary school and just beginning to learn the basic tenets of what it meant to be a socialized and literate human, my eye-rolling made relationships with teachers quite difficult.

  It was Grade five. I sat in the principal’s office after a particularly terrible flare up
of my peculiar affliction.

  “Leslie, if you don’t stop rolling your eyes, I swear to Jesus, I will punch you in the face with my freaking fists.

  And I won’t take off my rings!” Ms. Nichol said. I rolled my eyes.

  “I swear to Christ!”

  “OK, calm down, Ms. Nichol,” Mr. Duchamp, the principal, said. “Let’s start from the top. Tell me about the incident.”

  “We were in the midst of a quiz about Confederation. And I asked the simplest of questions: ‘What was the date of the Meech Lake Accord meetings?’ Leslie said that he didn’t know and then proceeded to roll his eyes at me. In front of the entire class. To show such disrespect to me is bad enough. But to roll your eyes at our national heritage? That is tantamount to treason, Mr. Duchamp!”

  “Leslie, why do you hate Confederation so much?” Mr. Duchamp asked.

  I rolled my eyes.

  “What is your problem?” Ms. Nichol said.

  “I don’t want do it. It’s a facial tic. I was born with it. It just happens when I get nervous. And I get really nervous a lot. I was born with it,” I said.

  Ms. Nichol closed the office door. Mr. Duchamp took out the strap. This was my favourite part.

  PEN PALS

  Constance Waterfield

  115 Ash Street

  Goose Creek, South Carolina

  29445

  Dearest Constance,

  I procured your name and address from the personal advertisements of the most recent saddle-stitched issue of Letters of Appreciation: The Official Newsletter of the Society for the Revival of Old-Timey Letter Writing in Contemporary Society. How swiftly my blood flowed when I read your entry! “I must write to her post-haste!” I thought to myself. And now that very thought is in action. And ink is meeting paper! I do hope you will be my pen pal, my correspondence comrade as it were. (Note that I do not mean “comrade” in any communist sense of the word. I just enjoy the poetry of the phrase!) In an effort to persuade you, I shall now tell you a little bit about myself.